Title: Chemical Abundances and the Formation and Evolution of the Galactic Bulge

Abstract: Understanding the detailed structure and composition of the Galactic bulge is crucial for decoding the formation history of the Milky Way and interpreting observations of extragalactic stellar populations. Previous spectroscopic studies of individual bulge stars have been rather sparse and mostly limited to fields located along the bulge minor axis. However, detailed kinematic and chemical composition information for large samples of stars in multiple bulge regions are critical to understanding how the bulge formed and how it may have interacted with the Galactic disk and halo populations. Investigating the chemical abundance patterns of light odd-Z, (alpha), Fe-peak, and neutron- capture elements, which are indicators of different production sources and timescales, allows us to reconstruct a stellar population's evolutionary history. Therefore, we are proposing a long-term project aimed at determining the chemical composition of ~1,000 Galactic bulge giants in 14 fields spanning a large portion of the bulge. These data will be obtained with the Blanco 4m and WIYN 3.5m Hydra Echelle spectrographs, and will be combined with a similar sample of \omega Centauri stars to provide insight into the chemical evolution of two independently evolving populations that span a metallicity range of ~1,000.